E ssential to liberty is the separation of powers among the three branches of government: the legislative, the executive and the judicial. As America’s founders established it, too much power exercised by one branch is supposed to be checked by the other two branches. That balance of powers has been brought up in the Republican […]

While liberty is a full-time passion of mine, writing about it is merely a part-time urge. A pretty strong urge that will not be ignored, but one which can be delayed when necessary. Life is usually pretty full of other things, which tend to get in the way of things I plan to write about; […]

You do have a choice, but it is not the choice you are usually presented with. The real choice is between being responsible for governing your life or allowing someone else to govern you. To put it more bluntly, the choice is between liberty and slavery. However, if you listen to anyone other than libertarians […]

What is it you most would like to do if you had no onerous regulations and laws holding you back? What would you do with liberty? This is a question libertarian author and novelist L. Neil Smith has posed in the past. It is still one of the best ways to awaken to the potential […]

Liberty is primarily a libertarian concept. In fact, you could say it is THE libertarian concept. But it is a concept often borrowed and used by others. Just as you are not a chess player if you make up your own rules for playing the game, regardless of whether or not you use the proper […]

I place a high value on liberty. My own, obviously, but also on yours. After all I only get as much liberty as I respect for all others. If we are to ever have that free society, rather than going it alone, there is a realization that needs to occur: It takes all kinds. Or […]

There is no way to force someone to be free. As a libertarian I see the absurdity of that impossible notion. So when I point out the wrong of liberty-destroying laws I am not demanding that those who feel they need them give them up. That would be trying to force them to be free. […]

Freedom New Mexico We’ve always taken a moment the week of Nov. 24 — the birthday of R.C. Hoiles — to reflect on the ideas underpinning a philosophy of liberty that Hoiles strove all his life to understand and popularize, and to consider how those ideas fare in modern America. Hoiles founded Freedom Communications, the […]

Good morning and welcome to Freedom New Mexico’s Thursday morning briefing.Crop reports due Farmers must report their crop acreage, except for small grains, by July 15 to continue to be eligible for U.S. Farm Service Agency programs. Farmers must report acreage for all crops, including those planted on non-cropland such as hayed or grazed pasture. […]

Cannon Connections staff Recent rains delayed the opening of Liberty Pool past its annual Memorial Day opening date. But not far past it. The pool will open Wednesday with a season opening pool party scheduled for June 12. Maj. Rick Gearhart, Force Support Squadron commander, said the pool underwent regular maintenance and repairs to get […]

Freedom Newspapers A “little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical,” is one of the better-known quotes of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was born this week in 1743. It’s not hard to imagine which side he would take in today’s battles over the […]

Freedom New Mexico This decade brought the loss of four iconic friends of liberty whose ideas helped change the course of history. We will certainly miss President Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley Jr. and Milton and Rose Friedman. Few American presidents have demonstrated the principled discipline of Ronald Reagan. His political career started in California […]

By Tibor Machan: Freedom New Mexico columnist When those on the political Left refer to defenders of the free market system as “right wingers,” there is understandable concern about how the term is being abused. Classical liberals, the supporters of both economic and civil libertarianism, have been anything but “right wingers,” quite the opposite. In […]

By Tibor Machan: FNNM columnist One of my colleagues at Chapman University told me how much he favors the following sentiment expressed by former President Franklin D. Roosevelt: “I am not for a return to that definition of liberty under which for many years a free people were gradually regimented into the service of the […]

Marshall Fritz, a tireless activist for the cause of human liberty, died peacefully in his hometown of Fresno, Calif., earlier this month after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 65. The founder of three different nonprofit organizations dedicated to furthering freedom in different ways, he was a genial giant with a booming voice […]

Freedom New Mexico The mistrial last week in the case of the “Liberty City Seven” highlights the foolishness of some of the government’s tactics in trying to track down domestic terrorists. The defendants were a group of ne’er-do-wells in a poor neighborhood of Miami who talked foolishly, were infiltrated by the FBI and then were […]

By Freedom New Mexico This month we remember the founder of our company, R.C. Hoiles, who bought the then-Santa Ana Register in 1935 and founded a company he named Freedom Newspapers. It grew into Freedom Communications, today the nation’s 12th largest media company, with operations on the Internet, in broadcast, magazines and newspapers. Hoiles launched […]

By Brian Doherty: CNJ correspondent Most of the heroes of the American libertarian movement have been economists and academics. That scrappy gang fighting for the ideas at the heart of America’s founding — that government should be restricted to, at most, the protection of its citizens’ life, liberty, property, and ability to pursue happiness — […]